They’re So Cute! …Why Are They Called “Doomlings”?

Because sometimes, the end of the world is adorable. Right? Right. It’s certainly the case in Doomlings, “a delightful card game for the end of the world”! Though, to be totally fair, the game only ends at the End of the World. It is, more accurately, about the possible courses of life on Earth! Or some unspecified, distant planet…

Doomlings is a game of populations and traits, like Evolution for amoebas. Perhaps your organism is eloquent, or warm-blooded! Each trait comes with its own bonuses and setbacks, even if they’re just opportunity costs, and make up the tapestry of a complex, hopefully well-adapted life form. Your options always stabilize per the scope of your Gene Pool, so the higher that value is, the more cards you have in hand! Your default is always playing one, but some cards have actions that let you play others, or End of the World bonuses per certain cards still in your hand.

The End of the World is, sadly, inevitable. How else would the game end? Rounds are tracked by Ages, starting with the Birth of Life and instituting different effects, some immediate and some lasting the whole Age. Eventually, you hit a Catastrophe! Catastrophes mark the ends of Eras, of which the game has three, and at the third Catastrophe, the world ends. The poor planet can only take so much. Between World’s End effects, traits’ face values, and any bonuses and modifiers, this one is very much anyone’s game right up to the end. Which is thematically on-brand! Doomlings offers a very cheerful, carefree apocalypse experience, with jokes aplenty and the doctrine that there is no secret perfect path in life. It’s sprawly and swingy and colorful in a way that brings me joy. And the fact that it’s cute sure doesn’t hurt!

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ALL The Holidays

As a youngling I discovered that there are holidays for everything, from food to awareness to that which is just plain silly. Of course, that was on a paper calendar, which quickly fell out of function, and I took to the internet to find something similar. What I found was Checkiday! Defaulting to the day-you’re-checking, Checkiday also lets you search by dates or keywords, and has a truly impressive range of holidays, from National Black Forest Cake Day, to Champion Crab Races Day (and I’m very curious about this one now), to International Day for Monuments and Sites. There’s always an “On This Day In History” link, too!

I have to remind myself occasionally that I can’t celebrate everything to my interest – not to overthink it – and in that light: it’s fun, it’s educational, and it brings to light things you may not realize how much you appreciate, until someone calls attention to it. Like pencils!

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When In Doubt, Seahorses and Dinosaurs

We were in West Palm Beach, Florida recently without a concrete plan for how to spend a day, so we went brochure fishing and found ourselves at Cox Science Center and Aquarium! It’s right next to Palm Beach Zoo, which I thought was pretty convenient, and it partners with a variety of food trucks on weekends so that there’s food. More importantly, it’s a neat little science museum!

First of all, dinosaurs. This is both the temporary exhibit currently on display and a theme of their outdoor space, where a handful of dinosaur chairs and things abound; the indoor, more involved version includes animatronics and a Mesozoic tour of Pangaea, mapping out dinosaurs by continent! This was especially cool to me, as it put eras and geography back in context in a way that growing up with Jurassic Park did not. Similarly, even for dinos where I knew which current-day continent they were found on, it hadn’t occurred to me that at the time that they existed we still had supercontinents, and so where those species were relative to each other was very different! It was just a hike from South America to Australia, once upon a time.

Outside, along with the dino walk, a number of physics-based exhibits, a splash pad, and a gem panning station! You were welcome to buy a bag of gemstones, shark teeth, or fossils, complete with mining substrate, and experience panning for yourself. Inside, some engineering-for-kids stuff that reminded me of the DuPage Children’s Museum here in Illinois, a meteorology exhibit, space rocks, logic puzzles, and, of course, the aquarium! I was especially excited about this bit, as it’s specifically focused on the Atlantic and Florida. Also, animals. I spent a lot of time here, taking photos and reading signage, of course, but also attending a number of activities! Including alligator petting. And feeding! Which were, notably, separate events. Turns out it’s also very entertaining to watch fish demolish a piece of lettuce!

If you’re ever in West Palm Beach, this is a great something to do that’s mostly inside, a little bit outside, and easily spanning multiple interests – we didn’t really get to the Planetarium schedule, and they have that too! There’s whole sections that are definitively aimed at kids, and as adults we wound up making most of a day of it.

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To Know Where You’re Going, Know Where You Are

This is old, old advice, right? The more you know about where you are and how you got there, the easier it is to find your way elsewhere! I’ve recently had cause to consider that in combination with the strange, fuzzy way that stress muddles your sense of time. ‘Yesterday passed in an hour, but this week’s been a year,’ right? And it got me thinking about ways that I anchor my concept of normal and of movement – now, then, later – against the fact that everything I experience is, has been, or will be “now.”

I take a lot of notes. I’ve mentioned this before, mostly in the context of “nebulously in the future,” as is the case with my recommendation lists and to-write work – both in many ways the predecessors to this post. As part of my ongoing character arc from “I can hold it all in my head!” to “why, actually?” I’ve expanded that concept to include the near future and the past! I’ve taken particular notice to the visibility of deadlines. Coupon expires next week? Add it to the calendar. Crucially, add it to a calendar that I already look at. Make travel plans by this date, submit Hugo nominations by then… On the subject of the Hugos, I’ve also taken to writing down eligible material as I encounter it! No more mad scramble for what all I’ve done in the past year and which of it is relevant.

Of course, there’s also the broader matter of things I’ve gotten done – a sentence that has soured in other contexts, and proven quite useful in this one, especially for the odd little things that don’t seem like Major Accomplishments. I keep a container of them now, on paper, with things like “real food,” “phone call,” and “found something I was looking for”! There’s one that just says “put my desk back!” – I honestly have no idea where the desk was or why, but I can infer it was important. I mean… exclamation point!

Point is, when I ask “what has happened recently?” and my concept of time betrays me, I have answers. When I ask “what do I need to actively be working on?” and “what do I have to look forward to?”, I have answers. And as the rest of the world shifts beneath us, the value of that can’t be discounted.

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Mythology, Folklore, and Musical Comedy

I’m five hundred posts into this blogging thing – insert cheering here – and it’s only just occurred to me that alongside talking about artists, I can post about individual songs! I don’t know why this hadn’t occurred to me earlier, given the patchwork composition of my playlists, but it has now and here we are!

I’m Sorry Trojans is an excellent example. How did this wind up in my life? Unknown. Am I glad that it did? Hell yes! A sort of narrative nonfiction/literary analysis comedy duo about the Trojan Horse, complete with OSP-style info-packed art. Along the same vein of Greek mythology (in multiple ways – hisss), Plaything of the Gods is the story of Medusa, featuring the cutest head-snakes and Medusa’s own perspective, and not of Greek myth but similarly narrative/chaotic/quietly ethically ‘eh…???’ is Three Kobolds In A Trenchcoat! Once again, adorable – all of these animators seem to have had a delightful time. And as a fan of 9th Level Games’s Knuckle Sammich – also about Kobolds – this one is doubly entertaining for me. Their Kobolds would do that! Regardless of context, though, it’s both a journey and a bop.

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Sesame Street Autocomplete

My exposure to Sesame Street has largely been background radiation; a mention of Big Bird here, a mention of Cookie Monster there. The Elmocize DVD. So it never really held the nostalgia for me that it does for people who were raised on it.

…This is my new favorite Sesame Street anything.

They got the cast (read: Muppets) to do the WIRED Autocomplete Interview, featuring questions like “How does one get to Sesame Street?”, and the amount of comedy and consideration they packed into an eight minute video promises that those kids who do grow up with Sesame Street are having a good time. With absolutely zero prior emotions attached to this concept, I went back and watched it again! And then watched the second one! I liked the first interview more – Cookie Monster’s comedy especially – and if this was a cornerstone of your childhood, I expect you’ll enjoy them both!

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Mammalian Mammals

Previously, I mentioned a blog I follow on Tumblr, @herpsandbirds, which covers animal photos and fun facts for, more or less, any animals that aren’t mammals. As a counterpart to that experience, I also follow @mammalianmammals, which exclusively covers mammals and has had some really odd ones recently! My favorite of which may be Demarest’s Hutia, pending changes. It’s cute, it’s educational – it’s a good time!

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Humor and Realities of a Medical Profession

In which a real-life EMT does sketch comedy about it! What’sGoodMedia is, first and foremost, hilarious – the pacing, physical comedy, and “just rolling with it” attitude can always make me laugh. Some such examples include How EMTs enter the Emergency Room, Things I say as a Music Festival EMT, and POV: Getting into a music festival, in which he’s scanning tickets. At times, he also posts more serious videos, like how first responders might reach someone in a crowd; all told, it makes for a really cool combo of down-to-earth, hilariously specific, and genuinely helpful to know. Most importantly to me, though, is the reminder that EMTs are just people – maybe exhausted, maybe a laughing a little, but most of all they’re here to help.

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Three Weeks of Fun!

In other words, the people behind Woof Days, Cat Days, and Dino Days came out with another set! Space Days, Pirate Days, and Dungeon Days, all of which follow the old mechanics and have their own thematic variances. In Pirate Days, one of those variances is the addition of dice!

The dice, I was glad to find, don’t seriously alter your turn structure; rather, certain cards will call for them, like the photographed Cannon. In that case, what you roll will determine which day on your opponent’s board the Cannon hits! We usually save this until the board is nearly full, of course, to maximize the chance of hitting something. This marks Pirate as by far the most Munchkin of any of the Days games, and the one that most lends itself to planning ahead, while Dungeon and Space are more reminiscent of the first three! More sci-fi and high fantasy, though, with Space straddling the border of real astronomy and speculative, and Dungeon offering a clear homage to Lord of the Rings: the Elf and the Dwarf can’t stand being placed together. Legolas and Gimli, anyone? There’s also the Mimic from D&D, Medusa, and a Boulder Trap, which (beyond reminding me of Indiana Jones) adds an interesting “this space can no longer be used” effect!

As always, these games are a blast (no Cannons intended… currently), and perfect for a two-player household. I wonder what kind of Days they’ll make next!

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